That the City Council:
APPROVE AND ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. ______ ENTITLED: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF LA HABRA, CALIFORNIA, ADOPTING "VEHICLE MILES TRAVELED" THRESHOLDS OF SIGNIFICANCE FOR PURPOSES OF ANALYZING TRANSPORTATION IMPACTS UNDER THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires public agencies to evaluate the environmental effects of certain projects before an action is taken regarding that project.  CEQA seeks to identify and mitigate or prevent significant environmental effects from occurring as a result of an agency's actions by requiring those agencies to avoid or reduce, when feasible, the significant environmental impacts of their decisions.
 

When SB 743 was enacted in 2013, the law required the establishment of new evaluation methodologies to better assess transportation impacts from certain projects, achieve the State’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and traffic-related air pollution, promote the development of a multi-modal transportation system, and provide access to clean, efficient forms of mobility. Pursuant to SB 743, the California Office of Planning and Research (OPR) crafted revisions to CEQA Guidelines that established criteria for determining the significance of transportation impacts, developed metrics to better measure transportation impacts, and created specific modeling criteria to analyze transportation impacts.  Upon certification of the revised CEQA Guidelines, traffic delays were no longer considered a significant impact to the environment when considering a project.
 

In December 2018, the OPR released the “Technical Advisory on Evaluating Transportation Impacts in CEQA,” which found that, as part of the State’s long-term climate goals relating to reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, California needed to focus on reducing Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), recommending that this could be achieved through VMT mitigation measures. The OPR technical advisory contained recommendations that noted that lead agencies had the discretion to develop and adopt their own thresholds or rely on the thresholds recommended by other agencies, provided that the decision of the lead agency was supported by substantial evidence. To that end, the Natural Resources Agency modified their CEQA Guidelines, determining that VMT was the more appropriate measure of assessing transportation impacts from proposed projects, and that a project’s effect on traffic delays would no longer constitute a significant environmental impact under CEQA.  This legislation took effect on July 1, 2020.
 

In preparation for updates to the CEQA Guidelines, the City of La Habra, along with the cities of Brea, Buena Park, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, and Yorba Linda jointly contracted with the consulting firm Fehr & Peers to prepare a study to analyze the methodology, thresholds, and mitigation approaches associated with the implementation of VMT for those respective cities.  Upon the conclusion of the study, staff at the City of La Habra continued to work with Fehr & Peers to develop specific VMT thresholds for CEQA compliance regarding transportation analysis to be conducted in La Habra.

 

As stated above, updates to the CEQA Guidelines were applied statewide as of July 1, 2020.  All projects that had not circulated CEQA documents prior to this date have been, or will be, required to prepare a VMT analysis as part of their CEQA environmental review process. As a result of the updates to the CEQA Guidelines, the prior "Level of Service" (LOS) traffic impact measurement no longer constitutes a significant environmental effect under CEQA.  As such, VMT thresholds for the City of La Habra have been developed to meet these new CEQA guidelines; however, adoption of VMT thresholds does not preclude the City from also using LOS analysis to be consistent with the City General Plan requirements in setting operational goals, which are to be attained and maintained as the City grows and develops in the future.

Level of Service (LOS) is a qualitative measure used to describe the operational conditions of the traffic flow along sections of roadways or at intersections.  Generally expressed in terms of ability to maneuver within the traffic flow, delays, driver comfort, ability to obtain desired speeds, and safety of traffic and is graded from "A" (best or free flow operations) to "F" (worst or forced/breakdown flow).  As noted above, the CEQA criteria for traffic impacts has now been replaced with VMT.  VMT measures the per capita number of vehicle trips generated by a given project, and the distance those vehicles will travel to and from a project, rather than evaluating congestion levels on roadways or at intersections. Using VMT for analyzing transportation impacts will emphasize reducing the number of trips and distances those vehicles are used to traveling to, from, or within a proposed development project.  Projects located near transit sites and/or within infill areas generally have lower VMT than projects in rural or undeveloped areas.  The shift to VMT analysis under CEQA is intended to encourage the development of jobs, housing, and commercial uses in closer proximity to each other and to mass transit facilities.

In order to implement this new standard, the City has developed a VMT analysis tool (criteria/standard) for analyzing projects. This tool has a process which will include screening out projects which do not meet the minimum criteria for analysis.  There are multiple steps that a project applicant will go through to determine whether their project is considered screened out and therefore exempt from a VMT analysis. The first step looks at the number of vehicle trips relative to a building size, with 110 vehicle trips per day for a 10,000 square foot building as the initial measurement test.  Should a project be determined to cause more than 110 vehicle trips per day, or have a building larger than 10,000 square foot, it would not qualify to be screened out from the first step and would proceed to step two of the guidelines.  The second step includes a list of project types which the City has already determined to be not significant and therefore would not require a VMT analysis.  The list (as defined from OPR) includes local serving retail (50,000 square feet or less), K-12 public schools, daycare/childcare/pre-K, affordable housing, student housing, community institutions (public library, fire station, local government) but in addition, the City of La Habra has also determined that other land use types should be considered to be screened out as they are local serving which includes; local-serving assembly uses, senior housing (as defined by HUD), and local-serving medical uses.  It should be noted that steps three through six have already been selected by the City of La Habra.  Continuing through the checklist to step three, the City has selected Origin/Destination (OD) as the project generated VMT methodology as OD accounts for all vehicle trips beginning and ending outside of the model boundary (City Limits) and is therefore a more conservative approach.  Continuing on to step four, the City has selected the City of La Habra as the project generated VMT methodology for benchmarks as the appropriate boundary for the regional benchmark for all impacts instead of the County of Orange as this again is a more conservative approach as the City of La Habra is already more than 15% below the County of Orange VMT average.  Step five focuses on the threshold for the project generated VMT methodology which was developed from the NOCC SB 74 Implementation Thresholds Assessment dated 10/23/2019 and the City of La Habra went with option three which sets the thresholds consistent with RTP/SCS Future Year VMT projects by jurisdiction or sub-region (i.e. better than General Plan build-out).  This methodology will assume the City of La Habra is completely built-out as defined in the General Plan and look at the VMT impacts from the proposed projects, which is also the conservative way of approaching.  The final step is whether to include Level of Service (LOS) or not as part of the City's TIA guidelines and per the general plan the City will continue to include this as a part of traffic impacts but not as a part of CEQA.

In addition to developing VMT thresholds, staff is developing local "City of La Habra Transportation Impact Assessment (TIA) Guidelines".  These guidelines will serve to provide direction to project applicants on VMT thresholds and the preparation of a Transportation Impact Analysis that uses VMT Analysis as the method of impact analysis per CEQA Guidelines.  The City's process will also require the preparation of project related traffic assessments that use LOS Analysis to measure vehicle delay and traffic congestion for consistency with the guidance provided in the City General Plan. The City of La Habra TIA Guidelines will become effective upon their completion and adoption by the City, and will be adjusted as necessary to align with current best practices and potential future court decisions regarding the use of VMT thresholds, Transportation Impact Analysis utilizing VMT Analysis, and Traffic Assessments utilizing LOS Analysis.  A working version of the TIA Guidelines should be made available by the end of June 2021.